GTAV will have to wait its turn. We’ve been looking forward to Saints Row: The Third for a while now and after the dirty delights of SR2, we can’t wait to get stuck in again with the current console generation’s most enjoyable open world crime series.
After pissing off The Syndicate, the Saints are forced out of Stillwater despite being the world’s most famous street gang. Instead, they’re dumped into Steelport and have to start from square one again. Their rise to power pits them against The Syndicate and the gangs of Morning Star, The Deckers and The Luchadores, the latter of whom are led by Killbane, voiced by Hulk Hogan. With this fresh start, the series is welcoming to old and new players.
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Top marks for whoever named this collection, still makes me laugh. Anyway, this disc of PSN PlayStation Move titles includes some lesser-known titles that may have passed you by originally, including Lemmings, Echochrome ii and Tumble.
Lemmings
The premise is familiar, and thankfully 2D, rescue the lemmings from their ledge-hopping doom with a variety of applicable abilities in some tasty new levels.
On paper, Lemmings controlled with the Move sounds like a good idea. In practice, it’s not great. When the lemmings are close together, the sensitive crosshairs are too awkward and struggle to pick out individuals. In addition, the buttons seemed not to work half the time. Thankfully, the game is playable with a regular controller and the analogue sticks perform admirably in the absence of a mouse.
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Late movie tie-ins are bound to raise suspicion from any gamer, especially from a film that’s clearly one of Pixar’s poorer efforts. Unless the UMD fires out of the PSP and blinds me, this should be a better experience than the film. Maybe. The retail version isn’t yet available in the shops (next year apparently) but the PSN version is available now, albeit at an optimistic price.
After expecting a few standard races around the film’s locations, I was surprised to see that they’ve changed the racing format a little. Instead of having full steering control from a rear camera angle, you’re locked into lanes. You swap between them by flicking the analogue stick left and right. The camera sweeps around throughout the race, attempting to provide the best cinematic angles.
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Aiming to please fans of both traditional and modern Sonic titles, Sega have included both styles in one game. Surprisingly this hasn’t resulted in the partial disaster I expected. But is Sonic still capable of a decent result in a genre that has unfortunately all but faded?
We find ourselves taking turns to play as the 2D side-scrolling scamp of old and the free-moving chatty rail-grinder. Time travel is the logic behind this merging of styles, as modern-day Sonic joins forces with his younger 1990s self. Together they must defeat Dr. Robotnik and Dr. Eggman, essentially two versions of the same villain. In addition to the fat moustachioed one(s), there’s a sinister creature that caused the time rift in the first place.
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At the end of my 8/10 review of Mercury Hg last month, I thought I’d be very happy to have some more of the same when the DLC came along. Wish granted! The £1.99 Heavy Elements DLC provides 30 challenging extra levels for this great PSN game.
For extensive details on gameplay, I’d recommend clicking the above link for my review of the main game. Essentially, you tilt obstacle course worlds to roll a blob of Mercury to the exit. Prize atoms are rewarded for finishing, maintaining 100% health, collecting all the items and for par times.
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After hearing Dirt 3 would be making a return to proper rallying, I couldn’t help but feel let down by the final product. So much of the game was left to the demented machinations of Ken Block; I was relieved they’d taken McRae’s name off the box. A rally car is not a BMX or a skateboard as the clumsy gymkhana sections proved.
WRC 2 lives and breathes for proper rallying though. Traditional A-B stages dominate, with a few Super Special Stage duels thrown in for good measure. All the big names like Loeb, Solberg and Hirvonen are here along with their official WRC rides. The lower rally leagues and the infamous Group B cars are also present. You can race individual rallies with the stars straight away, or get started on the lengthy career mode, The Road to the WRC.
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Nathan Drake returns for another top-rate adventure. After hearing his very distant relative, Francis Drake, must have taken a detour on the way back from one of his famous voyages we’re off to search for clues to see if he discovered the lost Arabian city of Ubar.
The story takes time to delve into Nate’s past, allowing us to explore how he met Sully, who now plays a larger role than the previous games. It never feels like padding and fans will enjoy the insight into the friendship. Don’t worry, Elena and Chloe are still around too.
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Co-op multiplayer Ratchet & Clank. The series has been consistently fantastic without it, but we’re always keen to watch a great game grow. But with co-op, we knew there would be concessions to the game we know and love. Would this sour the overall experience though? In short: no, this is still a great Ratchet game, even as a single-player experience.
If you’d prefer to play through the game alone (also the best way to build up your arsenal), just choose a character and get going. With Ratchet, Clank, Captain Quark and Dr. Nefarious all working together against a common enemy, you can choose to play as any of the four. An AI partner follows you around to help in gunfights and co-op tasks if you’re flying solo. Co-op partners, either local or online can drop in or drop out at any time, which allows you to progress through the game as you choose.
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After the chaotic events of Arkham Asylum, only the corrupt world of Gotham City would let the madhouse’s warden become mayor and allow him to hire Dr. Strange to cordon off a whole section of the city for a new asylum/prison. Dr. Strange being the head-case he is, it isn’t long before innocent civilians find themselves locked up without warning or trial. Soon enough, we’re walking Batman himself through the prison gates too, albeit as Bruce Wayne.
It’s going to be another long night for the Batman. Arkham City takes on an open-world approach with various missions available around the city map. It’s clear that films like Escape from New York have heavily influenced the landscape. Electricity is limited and streets are littered with trash, barricades, burnt out cars and mobs of angry thugs. Famous in-mates like Two-Face, Penguin and Joker all have their own areas and gang members. Despite the place being a shit-hole, they’re still all having a massive turf war.
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Why did the chicken cross the road? To take on an army of totalitarian penguins in a cool action puzzle platformer. Browser game fans may recognise the game, as it’s an extended version of Rocketbirds: Revolution.
The cartoony character art style set against the wartime background of the sinister penguin forces oozes style. Cutscenes play out a straightforward story of redemption and revenge with some surprisingly dark moments amongst the genuinely funny parts that themselves will raise plenty of wry smirks. Psychedelic rock band, New World Revolution, provide the soundtrack to the cutscenes, and while you won’t be rushing off to buy their album, their sombre tones suite the game well.
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This was new a sample of some new multiplayer playgrounds, unfamiliar even to players of the recent beta, with some local matches over a LAN connection bringing Manchester PlayStation Access attendees together before encouraging them to pull each other off ledges.
Uncharted 2 surprised everyone by making a fine first effort with the multiplayer and U3 looks set to surpass it easily with its dosage of cinematic sequences and power plays where a team is given a temporary stat boost. Today we played around on a few maps new maps with team deathmatches being the game of choice. One map was set in a desert village, similar to that seen in the recent single-player footage. There were lots of close alleys with corners and walls to hide behind, making for a fast-paced match where itchy trigger fingers and sharp melee skills proved most lethal. The climbing was brilliant here too as it can be used to perform grab kills to pull opponents over a ledge. It’s uber-slick and will probably cost us many lives in the pursuit of enjoyment over a decent kill/death ratio, as it does leave you vulnerable to being swatting off the wall in a hail of gunfire.
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It would be a shame if this gets lost in the Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 storm, as it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It might just be the perfect tonic to military shooter fatigue.
The aiming still feels a little loose, as I noted with my Gamescom preview, but the game plays quite well forgoing iron-sight aiming and just blasting through. There is a large amount of auto-aim when you pull up your sights and watch as they pull across the screen to the nearest enemy. As with most titles though I’m sure you’ll be able to tone down the sensitivity and turn off any auto-aim functions so you can maintain control.
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Console bundled with Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games on November 18th.
With Nintendo hoping the Wii U will be bringing in the cash next Christmas, the blue console will be the Wii’s last chance to shine at gaming’s busiest season. Backwards compatibility for GameCube games and controllers will no longer be supported though.
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Starhawk’s single player game is something I’ve been waiting to get my hands on for a while now and I’m glad to say it was well worth the wait. This sci-fi third-person shooter is shaping up to be a lot of fun, especially given the original game’s lack of an offline side. But can it compete in a genre crowded with classics like Uncharted and Gears of War? Being able to instantly drop an arsenal of buildings, turret towers and vehicles from your own personal orbital carrier will certainly help its cause.
This early mission introduces the eagerly awaited building mechanics of the game. First though, it was time to clear the building site of a few aliens, who have a neon-Chimera feel to them. The standard assault rifle weapon was more than capable of taking them on, with no sign of any unwanted auto-aim to take away your fun. Red barrels and grenades provide huge explosions scattering bodies everywhere in glorious fashion. After playing through Brink, recently, it felt good to have grenades that erupted in fire again instead acting like a popped semi-deflated beach ball.
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For years, the Ratchet & Clank series has been crying out for co-op and from what I’ve played so far, it was a great call for Insomniac Games to finally run with it before they put all their efforts into the multi-format Overstrike. After playing the beta recently, I was worried about a few bugs that required a game reset, but I’m happy to report they were nowhere to be seen with this latest build of the game that took place in the same levels.
Ignoring the usual heroes, Ratchet and Clank, we opted to play an offline two-player game as the showboating Captain Quark and the er nefarious Dr. Nefarious, the two characters that have provided some great laughs over the years. Players will find the action very similar to the older games with every character having shooting and melee skills, complete with their own version of Ratchet’s Comet Strike, where they throw their weapon, only to have it boomerang back to them, which is great for smaller enemies and crates.
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Early PSP adopters may remember Mercury, but for everyone else, it’s time to play the definitive version, Mercury Hg. Put your red pens down the Hg is the Periodic Table of Elements name for Mercury. But yes, it’s essentially Mercury HD.
The game involves tilting the platform worlds around to roll a ball of liquid mercury around until you get it to the exit. If you get too close to the edge you’ll start to drip over the sides, depleting your life bar and size. An audio cue will let you know that you’ve been sloppy, so you don’t need to let your eyes wonder to the health metre when navigating a tricky part. Pushing Select will give you an instant restart if you’re on a mission for perfection.
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Here’s a roundup of some of the games I managed to get some extensive hands-on time with at the recent Eurogamer Expo in London. As well as highlighting what was looking good, I’ve pointed out a few that you should definitely beware of before you splash the cash. The Contender category consists of a few games that you might usually overlook due to past form or generic looks, but have a read; you might just change your mind.
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Tags: Anarchy Reigns, Binary Domain, Brendan Griffiths, Driver 3DS, Eurogamer Expo 2011, Hands-on preview, Inversion, Need for Speed: The Run, Rage, Ridge Racer: Unbounded, Sonic Generations, Uncharted: Golden Abyss
After attending a recent developer session at a games expo event, I was invited to a behind closed doors interview session with Nolan North, the talented voice actor behind Nathan Drake of the Uncharted series. During the interview he spoke about how he became a voice actor and about his roles in other games such as the Penguin in Batman: Arkham City and as Desmond in Assassin’s Creed.
Click through to watch the extensive video interview.
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Regretting not finishing Final Fantasy XIII? Well that probably depends on whether you managed to forgive the linearity and heavily automated combat to push on and finish, or on how adept you are at finding HD cutscene compilations on torrent sites to enjoy what was a cracking story along with some generation-leading CGI.
Either way you better get cracking because there’s every chance that you’ll want to return to Cocoon and Gran Pulse next year with this sequel. Don’t worry about your FFX-2 flashbacks; no Dresspheres have been sighted, yet.
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If you thought the PSP wasn’t capable of hosting spectacular action games then you’d be very wrong, as Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta are a fine pair of beasts. But let’s face it, Kratos was always way too angry to settle being stuck in your pocket.
While the first God of War collection and the Sly or Prince of Persia HD trilogies were upgrades of already good-looking PS2 games, this has taken more of an effort coming from the PSP. Sporting the best visuals the handheld ever saw, these games are now re-born with their potential fully realised in HD.
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GTAV will have to wait its turn. We’ve been looking forward to Saints Row: The Third for a while now and after the dirty delights of SR2, we can’t wait to get stuck in again with the current console generation’s most enjoyable open world crime series.
